Blanc et Noir

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my name is: Elisabeth Sillars

i'm sharing: a color photo of a black-and-white moment (a favorite subject of mine, one might call Blanc et Noir?), looking west from the top of the great curved staircase in the Entrance Hall at the Getty Center

this was inspired by: thinking about the relationship between photography and other art forms over the centuries, suggested by the current exhibition "Noir: The Romance of Black." At the mid-19th Century when the artists in this exhibit were finding the freedom to explore subject matter such as dream states, photographers were "focusing" their efforts on realistic depictions of contemporary life (and death). Later, near the start of the 20th Century, photographers attempted to use their much improved materials to capture similar dream qualities in the world around them. Then the pendulum swung again to the desire for almost super-reality with the works of the "f64" group and others. And finally now, in the digital era, photographers can opt to work anywhere in between.